How’d the Young Curators do and what’s next….

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The young curators from Manchester Creative Media Academy (Boys) did a fine job of putting on exhibitions here at the Museum. They followed a creative curatorial process to design exhibitions, which would appeal to the diverse audience that visits The Manchester Museum.

One group devised an exhibition for the ‘young children’ that frequent the Manchester Museum. Cameron, Dylan, Connor. Declan and Ethan chose a selection of stuffed animals from the collection. They had to think of a theme, which would best show off the objects and reveal information to a certain audience. They thought that representing them through a food chain would be a great way to get young children to engage with the objects and help them learn basic science.

The group supported their exhibition with a series of images and text, to transform their selection of objects into an interesting exhibition. The interpretation (written information that goes with an exhibition) was targeted at ages 8 and above, so that it would be accessible to their chosen audience. They supplied images of basic food chains, appropriate animals hunting and eating in their natural habitat.

The group then identified and represented the order of their particular food chain from the Museum objects on display with clear signage. They also told their visitors interesting facts about the objects, including information about their natural eating habits. These supporting objects, together with the stuffed moles, bugs and butterflies, owls and foxes, made for a clear and interesting exhibition.

I have uploaded images of the exhibition, text written by the students and the young curators in action on the exhibition day. The finished exhibition was described as ‘good enough for the main museum’ by a Visitor Services Assistant!

The Curatorially Thinking project at Manchester Museum has made us think about the secondary art provision as a whole here, as it uncovered a great strength in our programming. The Museum is a great place for learning about contemporary creative practice. The current arts programming is closely linked to curatorial, collections, arts and academic practice. We have decided to re-jig the arts programme this summer and re-launch it in September. The programme will be streamlined and developed, so that these connections are at its heart.